Mortal Beloved – Director: Garth Maxwell/Writer: R.J. Stewart
This one starts with a woman wandering in the woods and running into a ghost. She freaks and runs to a tavern to tell everyone. Xena and Gabi are there and Xena volunteers to go check out the ghost. It turns out to be Marcus, her old flame from The Path Not Taken, who tells her things are screwed up in the Underworld and good souls are in danger. Marcus urges Xena to come put things right, telling her to use the Alcyonian Lake as an access point. Xena and Gabi travel to the Lake and despite Gabi’s reservations, Xena jumps into the (reputedly bottomless) Lake.
After getting a ride across the Styx from Charon, Xena finds Marcus. He explains that a notorious killer named Atyminius (who specialized in killing
brides the night before their weddings) stole Hades’ Helm of Invisibility and has turned the Underworld upside-down: good souls are confined to Tartarus, while the evil souls can rampage wherever they want and have taken over the Elysian Fields. Xena and Marcus head to the Elysian Fields to look for Atyminius and find the place overrun with debauchery … people are drinking, banging, and fighting just for fun. (Xena ends up catching a flask of booze someone 
randomly tosses at her, which will become important later.) They run into Xena’s old enemy Toxeus (from Death in Chains), but Toxeus isn’t even mad at Xena for killing him since he’s now enjoying the good life in Elysia thanks to Atyminius. Xena realizes Marcus was actually sent to Tartarus not Elysia and Marcus points out that his one good deed right before he died couldn’t make up for a lifetime of bad stuff. Atyminius shows up and soon figures out Xena isn’t dead, telling the evil souls to kill her.
Xena uses one of Gabi’s tactics and talks her way out of trouble, turning the evil souls against Atyminius. A general fight breaks out, with everyone hoping to wrest the Helm from Atyminius and rule the Underworld.
Atyminius beheads Toxeus and disappears, planning to go back to the mortal world and start killing innocent brides again. On the shores of the Alcyonian Lake, we see Gabi waiting patiently for Xena’s return, making conversation with some travelers who pass on their way to a festival. In the Underworld, Xena wants to see Hades, but Atyminius has two Harpies guarding Hades’ castle. Xena does her fire-breathing trick with a mouthful of booze (I told you it was important) and they get inside the castle. During the fight, Marcus’s vest gets pulled off and Xena seems quite impressed by shirtless Marcus (who does look pretty good, I have to admit). Hades tells Xena he doesn’t dare 
leave his castle without the Helm, but on hearing Atyminius’s plans he figures there’s a chance to beat him. Once Atyminius appears back on Earth with the helm, he’ll be mortal and can be killed again. Xena says she’ll bring the Helm back but wants Marcus’s mortality restored so he can help. Hades grants Marcus life for 48 hours and sends him and Xena back up to Earth. Gabi is still waiting by the Lake when Atyminius emerges, seeing her as a perfect first victim for his renewed murder spree. But Gabi fights back, bloodying his nose before taking off. Atyminius catches her and knocks her down. As he’s preparing to kill her, Xena and Marcus emerge from the Lake.
Xena stops Atyminius from finishing Gabi and when he disappears, Xena tracks him by his footprints and wounds him. Atyminius takes off (still invisible) while Xena makes sure Gabi is okay. Gabi meets Marcus (and is a
little freaked out to meet a dead guy) and they start tracking Atyminius. They’re forced to make camp when night falls and Gabi falls asleep, while Xena and Marcus stay up talking and end up banging. (Apparently, Gabi sleeps through their hot sex, but we’ve seen her sleep through a fight in Prometheus, so it’s certainly believable.) They find some people Atyminius already attacked and realize he’s heading 
for a wedding, his preferred stalking grounds. When they get to the wedding place, Atyminius has already started harassing people (though in a relatively petty way). Xena warns the bride’s father about Atyminius and offers to switch places with her for the purification bath that night, leaving the bride safe at home. We see the door close by itself, so Atyminius was obviously listening unseen. As Marcus escorts a veiled woman to the baths, Atyminius sneaks into the bride’s bedroom to kill her.
Naturally, the “bride” turns out to be Xena, who knew Atyminius would overhear her plan. She wraps him in a blanket to negate his invisibility and kills him, retrieving the Helm. Xena and Marcus head back to the Lake with
the Helm but Marcus is tempted to keep it, so he can stay mortal. In the end he chooses to do the right thing, as Xena taught him, and they head back to the Underworld. They run into the other Harpy and Xena lights it on fire with the rest of her booze, barely saving Marcus from falling into a pit of fire. Xena goes to see Hades and asks that he place Marcus in the Elysian Fields instead of Tartarus. Hades says Marcus was already judged, but Xena points out he’s mortal again, so he should receive a new judgment. Marcus appears (he was there 
invisibly the whole time) and hands over the Helm. Xena says goodbye and stabs Marcus, then asks Hades to look into Marcus’s heart to see who he really was, pointing out that he chose to return the Helm instead of remaining mortal. Hades places Marcus in the Elysian Fields and Xena has to say her final goodbye to him. Xena emerges from the Lake, where Gabi is once again waiting for her. Gabi says Xena and Marcus will see each other again some day and Xena says he’ll always be in her heart.
This is a pretty good episode (#70 on my all-time list); I like Marcus as a character and we get to see more of him than we did in Path Not Taken. He’s actually a decent guy at heart, which explains why he and Xena are drawn to
each other … they’re both good people who have done a lot of bad things but are trying to fight against their baser instincts. Marcus eventually makes it to the Elysian Fields because of what’s in his heart, even though he really wanted to keep the Helm and become mortal again. While he’s contemplating that, he tells Xena that it isn’t about doing what he wants, it’s about doing what’s right … something he learned from Xena (and an argument she’ll use with Gabi in the series finale).
I know some fans don’t like this one because of the Xena/Marcus romance, but it doesn’t really bother me too much. Xena and Marcus were close 
before, she’s known him for years, and she probably sees a lot of herself in him, which means if he can be redeemed then she might see some hope for herself. Xena’s admissions of love do seem a tiny bit forced, but I can buy it; I think it’s too early for any romantic feelings between Xena and Gabi (I don’t think that starts until next season), so there’s no reason why her love for Marcus can’t be genuine. This episode also introduces the idea that the dead can hear it when living people think about them, a notion that’ll continue throughout the series. Marcus tells Xena he could hear her thoughts about giving up on love after he died because it hurt so much to lose him. As we’ll see in future episodes, Xena has been disappointed by love many times (and even
forsaken it for a while), but Marcus tells her not to turn her back on love because it’s the most powerful force in the world. Maybe Marcus’s words are what allow Xena to fall in love with Gabi later on, instead of turning away from love like she might’ve been inclined to do. And since the dead can hear the thoughts of the living, I’m assuming Marcus will know when Xena falls in love with Gabi, so he won’t be waiting around in the afterlife for her to show up; he’ll know that Xena and Gabi are soulmates and that what he and Xena had can’t measure up to that.
Noticeable Things:
- Charon is played by an unrecognizable Michael Hurst (who played Iolaus), who seems to be channeling Michael Keaton in Beetlejuice.
- The Alcyonian Lake was a real place near Lerna in the northeast of the Peloponnesus. It was reputed to be bottomless and to contain a passage to the Underworld, so the real world mythology fits. Pylos was on the other side of the Peloponnesus, about 50 miles away. That explains why Xena, Gabi, and Marcus had to make camp on the way, as it would take them a couple days to get there.
- I’m not sure where Xena and Gabi are when the episode starts, but they seem very comfortable in the tavern, so I can’t help wondering if it might be Cyrene’s tavern in Amphipolis? I have a theory that Xena and Gabi stop in Amphipolis to see Cyrene every time they’re nearby; it would give Xena a chance to work on the relationship with her mother and it would explain how Gabi and Cyrene seem to know each other so well in later episodes. (On the other hand, I don’t think they ever stop off in Poteidaia to see Gabi’s family, since they aren’t all that fond of Xena, and we’ll see in a few episodes that Gabi hasn’t been
back to visit since she left.) - Even though I think it’s too early for any real romance between them, Gabi waiting patiently by the Lake for Xena has a very romantic quality to it and it certainly fits with the mythological trope of the lover waiting for the hero to return.
Favourite Quotes:
- “No, I’m Tallulah the dancing girl.” Charon’s reply when Xena asks if he’s Charon; he’s standing in a ferry on the River Styx, so it is kind of a stupid question.
- “Just the same, I don’t plan to close my eyes all night.” Gabi worrying what Atyminius might do while they’re camped. Of course, in the very next scene Gabi is snoring peacefully in a deep slumber by the campfire.